Hi, I'm Stephanie Wang-Breal, the filmmaker behind Wo Ai Ni Mommy (I Love You, Mommy). I am consulting producing on another film that I think would do well at the Hotdocs Pitch forum. anyone pitch their film there? did it result in any pre-sales/ or funding? and is it just plain worth the costs? looking forward to being part of this online doc community.

I am a sociologist and I have been researching on immigration and youth here in Barcelona, for about 3 years now. This has implied a lot of workfield in different public spaces on peripheral neighbourghoods. This adds to my interest in visual culture and in documentary practice, I have attended to some courses on technical matters ("experimenting with documentary") and also visual anthropology. Some days ago, I met, together with a colleague, a group of enthusiastic young men from Dominican Republic, who started to produce short films about "street-stories". We proposed to them to help on technical matters (lend them a better camera, script development), and at the same time we learn a lot from them and film the process of making this short film they want to present to a local competition (ending the 20th of december). We all want to continue with the experience after the competition ends, offering to them formation on script development, and they allow us to keep filming the process, with the idea of making a doc on their experience in a context such as the society, and the neighbourghood they live in.

It would be great if I could learn from the experience of others who have underwent these kind of processes... as well as sharing what I have learnt from the sociological (or anthropological) ethnography practice, "participational observation", etc.

Hello everyone at D-Word! My name's Christina and I specialize in making feature documentary films about Brazil. I grew up in Brazil, now live in London, and am interested in bringing contemporary stories about Brazil to a large international audience. You may have seen Only When I Dance, a feature about two teenage ballet dancers from Rio's most violent favelas that make it to the highest eschelons of the international world of ballet, which I co-produced. I'm new to this site and am looking forward to meeting others here with a passion for international feature docs (and maybe even some clues as to how to make a living out of them?!) as well as a great mutual exchange of info and help all round. All the best from snowy London!

I specialize in analyzing sports mechanics (how an athlete moves) with frame-by-frame video analysis. My Olympic athletes have won 44 Gold Medals and have set 11 World Records. You can see examples of our analyses on our YouTube channel 'somaxperformance'. I joined because I will be producing a documentary on our project to break the 2-hour mark in the marathon--currently thought to be impossible. We will also be needing videographers to record during race day, and I thought that this forum would be a good way to find local talent.

I am Andrew with Green Solutions. We are a US West and East coast DVD, CD, Blu-ray and Eco Friendly packaging company. We've been in business for almost 14 years. I have worked with hundreds of independent producers over the years. While self distributing can be difficult, I believe we have the ability to help. We work with a web fulfillment company in CA, who can set up your shopping cart, credit card merchant account (giving you complete control of the finances) and handle the drop shipping to your customers. Even if we don't do your work, I am dedicated to the Documentary Producer and will answer any questions related to authoring, packaging, replication, duplication, printing, credit card processing and fulfillment. I'm here to help.

Great, Andrew. I'm sure there are a ton of members here who would love to pick your brain about such matters. We talk about self-distribution all the time in the Marketing and Distribution topic, so feel free to hang out there.

Hello D-Word!
My good friend Joshua Z. Weinstein recommended I check out this site and I'm excited to join such a supportive and knowledgeable online community. I'm an aspiring editor with three years of experience assisting on features and shorts (including 2010 SXSW-nominated "Dirty Pictures"). I'm currently looking for my next project so if anyone is interested in hiring an intelligent, experienced, and friendly AE feel free to e-mail me at jeremiah.glazer@gmail.com. You can see a few videos I edited here: http://vimeo.com/jeremiahglazer. Thanks!

Hi,
My name is Larry Paros and I'm new here. I've just directed and produced a film called "Walk Right In." It's the perfect counterpoint to "Waiting for Superman" and "The Race to Nowhere," but we don't have the resources or contacts to get the word out. Help!

Hello everyone,
Pleasure to be aboard. I'm new to the D-Word and currently in pre-production on both my first documentary and my first feature length project. After obsessively agonizing on cameras, knowing full well the content matters more than the camera, I settled on the Panasonic GH1 for it's DOF capabilities, the fact that you could hack the bitrate settings (which I have done) and it seemed to be the only hi-def still/video camera that was capable of shooting for longer than 15mins at a clip without the camera overheating and or cutting off the clip at the 12-14min mark (as in the ever popular Canon DSLRs). So far I'm very happy.

I'll be posting more updates as I go but my main area of focus now is quality sound capture. I have a good indy rig but no wireless LAVs. I will post more on that in another section of the website and will certainly be looking for pointers and recommendations. I'm certainly in the market for some good multi-channel LAV mics if anyone has tips there.

My documentary is a "son gets to know his Jazz Musician father through his music and those who loved him and his music". And yes, I've seen "My Architect: A Son's Journey". GREAT film that was a major inspiration. If you've seen that film there are some very similar themes for me. My father was lost to me when I was fairly young (19), we didn't have much chance to get to know each other (family drama and his obsessive dedication to his music) and within the Jazz community he is rather legendary for those who really know his music.

I hope to explore the reasons why those fans and devotes of my father's music keep insisting he is a genius improviser and one of the top three improvisers of the 20th century (often listed with Charlie Parker and Lester Young others). These are odd things to digest about about someone whom you saw in a very different light growing up. I both seek to tribute my father but also get to know him better through his music. Hopefully both the viewing audiences and myself will get to know him a little better and come out the other side with a better understanding of what makes his particular stripe of musician so special.

So, next steps for me? Editing a fundraising snippet for Kickstarter and other online fundraising sights, finding some good wireless lavs and continuing to seek encouragement for this daunting task.

I do have a producer by the way. He is a former Cal Arts screen-writing instructor and huge fan/devote of my father's music. Wonderful fellow named Eddie Richey. My wife is also an ever-present producing partner and the other half of Leo Rising productions.

Here's to getting to know everyone better and most certainly sharing about the process.

Welcome, K.C. You might want to know about a similar doc by D-Word member Stan Warnow called "Deconstructing Dad", which is about his own famous musician father. Not to worry, though, since each filmmaker's journey is their own unique story.

True, there is also a brand new doc that I just saw at a theater in Pasadena. It was much more of a traditional doc. I saw both of them back to back and was lumping them together. Both wonderful pieces. The new doc has some amazing archival footage. "32 Short Films..." reminded me of a book written about my dad in which the author wrote as if he was my father (1st person) narrating his own life. Fascinating and brave way to tackle a subject. My producer is leaning toward experimental with the style and he told me to watch "32 Short Flms...". Loved it.

I stumbled upon this community and am happy to have found you all. This seems like an incredibly supportive environment, and that's a huge testament to both the members and the moderators. Kudos!

So, a little about me – Iâ€™m a multi-hyphenate Creative Producer/Writer/Marketing Consultant with over 15 years of experience working in the entertainment industry. More specifically, I've produced everything from the visuals for the groundbreaking documentary feature, THE KID STAYS IN THE PICTURE – to broadcast design packages for major cable networks. I also co-created and produced a grassroots media conference in NYC and LA, served as a publicist at a MGM/United Artists in NYC for four years and wrote a book (published by the Princeton Review).

I recently moved to LA to focus my career on producing larger-scale projects and seem to keep finding myself gravitating toward the documentary world. I dipped my toe into reality TV development and sold a pitch to Sony Pictures Television a few years ago but ended up backing out of the deal for personal reasons (the subjects were friends of mine, and Sony wasn't willing to give me Exec Producer credit because I had never run a show before – so, in the interest of protecting their interests, I pulled the plug). What's that they say about not being involved/close to your doc's subjects? Learned that the hard way...

Onward and upward! I'm now producing the visuals for a feature doc that's based up in Oakland and have recently started developing another non-fiction project about the business of cancer that has numerous media extensions, including a feature component. Having never helmed a project of this size, I'm here to absorb as much info as I can from the community – and to give back, as well.

That said, I'm a huge fan of indie empowerment and have been doing quite a bit of research re: Hybrid Distribution that I'm happy to share. I also have solid experience creating grassroots marketing and outreach strategies.

If anyone here would like a free outreach consultation for their project, please get in touch with me. I'd be happy to help point you in the right direction.

One question – do D-Listers ever get together for local in-person gatherings? As I mentioned, I'm fairly new to LA and am eager to meet like-minded folks.

Great to have you joining us, Jennifer! Feel free to leap right into the various discussions going on here and all the best with your projects.

Yes, there are quite a number of LA-based D-Word members, including our co-hostess with the mostess, Marj Safinia. They're often up for in-person F2F's, so don't hesitate to organize one (on the F2F topic). You might also want to join DocuLink, which is a mostly LA-based listserve for doc filmmakers.

Hello everyone,
I am the head of the documentary division at Muse Entertainment (www.muse.ca), a major independent film and television production house and an emerging force in international co-productions. We've won numerous international awards and were just nominated for a Golden Globe Award for the mini series Pillars of the Earth which we co-produced with Germany's Tandem Communications in association with Scott Free Films. We are mostly a live action, fiction producer but we are keen to work in the documentary world as well. The first documentary we co-produced with Switzerland and filmed in Jamaica was the successful doc feature Rocksteady: The Roots of Reggae. Our head office is in Montreal but we also have a US operation based in LA and a sales office in London, England. We are happy to look at documentary projects that would be relevant to Canadian audiences specifically but also of interest to international audiences.

Hi all – I'm a documentary sound guy from New York and happy to have found this community! I have been lurking for a few months, and I've enjoyed reading about (and participating in) your challenges and victories. I've been lucky enough to do some work with Josh Weinstein, Nick Higgins, and Amy Berg. I'm always looking for a good subject and a new challenge for work, and I'm happy to give advice where it's needed (I know a lot of you work alone).